Comparing America in Iraq and Russia in Georgia

If you read the Bible, you can't say that all violence is wrong. Otherwise, no Christian could ever join the police or the military. (Because they often have to kill some people to save others, and there is nothing morally wrong with that. It's the reality of life in a fallen world.) This is why I am not a pacifist. United States did not break international laws in entering Iraq. As I found later they did break their own Constitution, which requires the Congress to declare war instead of the President. (This rule has been broken by all US Presidents since WWII who have entered any conflict - all of these conflicts prior to the 1990s were started by Democrats.) As soon as I found out they broke the constitutional rule, I no longer support the war in Iraq, even if it was otherwise justifiable. Because I believe everyone should obey the highest law of the land, including (and especially) the government.

However, I simply don't see how the two conflicts (Iraq and Georgia) can be equated:

1. There was serious CIA intelligence saying that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and Saddam clearly said he had them and will use them against US. The only thing Georgia has is an oil pipeline that threatens Russian oil monopoly in Europe. (It's far away from the conflict zone and the Russian planes bombed it!)

2. Saddam Hussein was a dictator murdering an average of 270 people a day during his 20-year rule. (For a total of over 2,000,000.) Georgia is a democratic pro-Western country, with high levels of freedom and economic growth.

3. George Bush asked for and received the authorization of the UN security council before invading Iraq. Russia simply invaded a sovereign neighboring nation without even attempting to make a case for it to other nations. They only made excuses afterwards, and acted like anyone who was criticizing Russia (which is pretty much the whole world except for Cuba and Belarus - both ruled by dictators), was simply misunderstanding Russia's noble actions.

4. Russia handed out Russian passports to residents of South Ossetia and then claimed it had to go in to protect Russian citizens. That would be equivalent to the United States giving American passports to Quebec residents and giving them lots of weapons, then encouraging Quebec people to start shooting at other Canadians, wait until Canada's military responds to this violence and then invade Canada "to protect its own citizens" and claim that Canada started this war. All just to make the American territory bigger by adding Quebec to it. (They are now handing out Russian passports in Crimea and encouraging ethnic Russians to demand separation from Ukraine - quite likely to justify invading Ukraine.)

5. America has already spent almost a trillion dollars on the Iraq invasion (8% of the entire annual American economy!), and have gotten nothing in return, except for several thousands dead Americans. So, I am not sure what greed you are talking about in the American case. Much of that money is going to rebuild Iraq, giving them things that many Iraqis didn't even have during Saddam's rule - clean water for everyone, electricity for everyone, telephone lines for everyone, sharing of national oil profits with everyone, etc. And the Americans are hiring Iraqis to build these things - thus creating new jobs for Iraqis. The Russians destroyed the Georgian city of Gori, bombed the port city of Poti far away from the conflict zone, destroyed the country's main railway bridge, burned the forests of the Borjomi Nature Preserve (where the Borjomi mineral water comes from), bombed civilian airports and civilians in Georgian cities far outside the conflict area. And now they are looting all the areas they are in, trying to steal everything they can and take it into Russia. Although Russia is a much richer country than Georgia! (This Russian looting reminds me of the black criminals looting stores and houses in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit the city. That's the level of culture being displayed right now.) And this is not all, because sooner or later the Russian plan is to take away Abkhazia and South Ossetia and make them a part of the Russian territory.

6. The Americans used expensive precision weapons to minimize damage to civilians. Russians were using cheap cluster bombs, which destroy everything living in a large area. (Basically instead of destroying a particular target, a cluster boms has many sharpt pieces of metal that fly in all directions and kill or wound everyone around who is exposed to it.)

7. The Americans were not dressing into Iraqi military uniforms and committing atrocities, and no one ever accused them of it. There is evidence the Russians were doing it.

There are many more unfovorable comparisons that can be made, but I think this is enough to make my point. The Russian invasion is illegal and unnecessary, the use of force is disproportionate (swatting a fly with a sledge-hammer), and the looting and ethnic cleansing of Georgians is immoral, as is the destruction of Georgian property and infrastructure after the conflict was over.

Russians and Ossetians are looting Georgia

I am honestly not sure how any Christian can seriously support what the Russian government is doing in Georgia, although I have met Russian Christians who apparently do. Honestly, they should watch something besides Russian TV news, which in Russia are mostly government-owned or government-controlled, and typically contain loads and loads of government propaganda. Having watched a number of Russian news reports I can say that the only thing you get from it is the portrayal of Russians as heroes and Georgians as criminals, and all information is manipulated to make it look that way. In the past few months as the Russian government was preparing for an invasion into Georgia, the Russian TV was so anti-Georgian, that the Russian public actually began to see the tiny nation of Georgia (whose military is 20 times smaller) as Russia's enemy number 1, instead of the traditional #1 spot being occupied by the United States.

According to multiple independent sources, Russian regular troops, Ossetian militias and irregular Kuban Cossack units are all marauding across Georgia, looting people's homes, stealing everything they can take away (furniture, dishes, vehicles, computers, pieces of wood, even toilets!) and burning everything they can't. There are multiple eyewitness accounts of Russian soldiers telling Georgians to leave their houses or be killed. After the people leave, everything from their houses is taken and the houses are burned. In some cases, even the houses are taken apart brick by brick and everything is carted away into Russia. This is going on across Georgia, wherever Russian troops are, not just in the Georgian villages in South Ossetia. Russian troops even stole humanitarian aid from the Georgian port of Poti, along with 20 American military Humvees that belong to the American government and were used in a military exercise earlier this month. Eyewitnesses say that Russian troops are also dressing into the uniforms of Georgian soldiers and committing atrocities, something that the Soviet KGB was doing in Western Ukraine after WWII, by creating fake Bandera troops and killing peaceful people, and then telling everyone how evil they were. (This was proven by documents released by the KGB after Soviet Union fell.) There's plenty of evidence on the Internet, from independent organizations like Human Right Watch, who have people on the ground watching the situation, to videos taken on the ground in Georgia.

Pictures of Ossetian militias looting and burning Georgian villages: http://www.hrw.org/photos/2008/georgia0808/

Russian troops dressed as Georgians commit atrocities against Georgian people:


Russian soldiers steal US Humvees from Georgia:



In this video the Russian soldiers are stealing a number of boats from the port of Poti. When one of them falls off the military truck, they simply set it on fire in the middle of the road:


Russian soldiers took computers and air-conditioners from a Georgian school building:


Russian commander allows Ossetians to steal a car belonging to a Georgian:


There's plenty more information around if you are willing to look at it.

The basic lesson of all this is that if Russian "peacekeepers" ever come for a visit to your contry, you better hide everything you own, because if you don't they will steal it or destroy it. Interestingly, the first thing the Russian soldiers were demanding from Georgians was wine, for which Georgia is famous. I am guessing if they ever come to Ukraine, the first thing they will be demanding is salo from Ukrainians. Ukraine is taking Russia's aggressiveness seriously and is preparing for a potential invasion from Russia in the future. And Ukraine is not alone in its fears. Many other European countries, even beside Baltic Republics and Poland, are seriously rethinking their relations with Russian Federation. For example, both Finland and Sweden are thinking seriously about the military threat from Moscow. Austrians are also upset. As are many other nations.

"Мы не хотим жить в состоянии ожидания опасности от России, - сказала министр иностранных дел Австрии и подчеркнула, что после таких событий Европа не может просто "перевернуть страницу и перейти к очередным делам с Россией"
http://maidan.org.ua/static/news/2007/1219381874.html

Сегодняшний конфликт в Грузии заставляет Финляндию снова задуматься о целесообразности членства в НАТО. ... Нападение России на Грузию показало, что военная агрессия не исключается и в северо-европейском направлении. Например, действующая шведская доктрина, согласно которой Швеции не грозит военная агрессия, уже признана устаревшей.
http://maidan.org.ua/static/news/2007/1219378691.html

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